Evacuation of Fort Sumter! >
The administration and the country all called to endure a great mortification.
Fort Sumter is to be evacuated, and left to the possession of the southern rebels!
Every body has hoped for a different result. It was known that the policy of
the new administration would be to retain our forts that we still held, and
not to surrender them. And the burden which the people so generally supposed
to have been exhibited by Maj. Anderson, has led to a universal hope and expectation
that one of the first acts of the new administration would be to relieve him
by sending him a re-enforcement of men and a supply of necessaries. Yet in face
of all this, the cabinet has concluded to make no effort to this end, but simply
to order the Major to leave the fort and make the best of his way to other safer
quarters.
Of course, this step has not been taken without the pressure of an absolute
necessity. It was repugnant we believe to every member of the cabinet and especially
so to the President and Secretary Chase. But Gen. Scott and Gen. Wool both concur,
not only in advising to this course but in declaring that it is the only course
left by which it is possible to save the troops or fort either. To do this we
can save the troops, though we lose the fort; to refuse, we lose both troops
and fort. Such is their opinion, and the opinion of all military men. It must
be the opinion of every one who will candidly weigh all the circumstances of
the case. There is the fort, with sixty-four men, and provisions enough to last
at longest fifteen or twenty days, when the garrison must starve or surrender.
Even now they are out of fuel. The rebel defenses of the harbor below the fort
are so strong and extensive, that nothing but a powerful fleet could enter the
harbor. Any mercantile-built vessel would be shivered into splinters before
she could get to Sumter; and even if she could reach there, she would be exposed
tot he Moultrie guns while the troops debarked and she unladed; and the entrance
to the fort having been so contracted by Maj. Anderson as to allow only one
man at a time to enter, one can imagine the slaughter that would be made by
the shot from Fort Moultrie before the re-enforcements could get under the shelter
of Sumter's walls. An army of ten or twelve thousand men, landing below the
defenses and attacking them in the rear, with a strong force of naval vessels
in front, could no doubt open the way to the fort and place therein as many
men and provisions as we pleased to put there; and could also demolish the entrenchments
below the fort and secure easy access to it by water hereafter. But we have
no army, and the President has no authority to raise one. At the last session
of Congress, the House defeated a bill allowing him to accept of volunteers
even. So he has no army and cannot raise one. But the navy! That is scattered
all over the globe, and ships enough to force a passage and relieve the fort
cannot be gathered and equipped for the service under two or three months, long
before which, the garrison must starve or surrender. Such is the state of things
as found by the administration on its first opening the books of office. It
has been cunningly brought about by Mr. Buchanan and his beloved friends, the
traitors whom he has loved and served better than he has loved and served his
country. The only question left to decide was, whether to withdraw the men or
to suffer them to starve. In either case the fort must go. It would perhaps
be less humilliating to lose the fort without consent than with; but it would
be inhuman. The cabinet has chosen the best course, undoubtedly but is has been
at the extreme of a great sacrifice of feeling. The sacrifice will be appreciated
by the people, when it is remembered that the necessity was not occasioned by
their acts, but by the acts of Mr. Buchanan. Secretary Holt says that thirty
days ago the fort could have been succored, and Mr. Buchanan was entreated to
send succor, but he obstinately refused. This is corroborated by Gen. Scott.
So far as the feasibility of the thing is concerned, every body who has kept
a narrow watch of things there knows that the fort could have been re-enforced
five or six weeks ago, just as well as not; and they know now that it cannot
be short of a large armament and great battle. Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet
had nothing to do with it then, and have not had till rendering succor became
an impossibility. Mr. Buchanan, if not a fool, must have foreseen this. We believe
he did foresee it; that he planned it, and executed it on purpose to embarrass
his successor at the very threshold of his administration: and that he is now
chuckling over the success of his treasonous plot with the southern rebels.
If he is a sane man he ought to be tried for treason; if he is a fool he ought
to be put under guardianship.
"Independent of the Philadelphia North American says:
"Mr. Holt has not hesitated to say that Fort Sumter could have been re-enforced
thirty days ago, and without involving a collision. Perfect arrangements had
been made for that purpose, under the direct superintentendence of Gen. Scott,
but the movement was arrested by the direct interference of the late President,
just as he sought to countermand the order for the sailing of the Star of the
West, and did send the Brooklyn to intercept her at Charleston. His negotiations
with the commissioners from South Carolina, and his whole conduct after the
ordinance of accession passed, clearly showed a design on his part to postpone
a collision until after the 4th of March, and to dispose of the army and navy
in such a manner as to render it almost inevitable when Mr. Lincoln came into
power. Mr. Holt very frankly declares that the new administration cannot be
held answerable for a state of facts with which it had no concern whatever.
It has no means of extrication and no choice but to make war with a demoralized
and inadequate array, or to withdraw the soldiers.
A Washington Correspondent of the N. Y. Tribune, says--
Evidence is rapidly accumulating at the War Department going to show that Major
Anderson has been playing a deep game for three months, and one which has deceived
his military superiors. For many weeks the steady tenor of his daily dispatches
has been, "Send no re-enforcements or supplies--I need neither troops nor
provisions, therefore, let me alone." Suddenly--the moment that Mr. Lincoln
takes the reins of government-- the tune changes, and now Anderson cries, "Send
me supplies, or it will be impossible to defend the fort." Why this sudden
change? Was not Major Anderson perfectly aware six weeks ago that the batteries
which were being erected at every commanding point in Charleston harbor would
soon render a re-enforcement impossible? If so, why did he not complain of the
military works which were intended to compass his destruction and warn his government
in time? It is stated on very good authority that he did no such thing, and
that Mr. Holt admits at least an apparent discrepancy between Anderson's former
and his later dispatches. The American people certainly will not condemn a man
unheard, and last of all men Maj. Anderson, but he will, if he leaves Fort Sumter,
need to clean up some of these misty points. It is suspected in some quarters
that Mr. Buchanan, upon his own responsibility, sent a secret agent to Fort
Sumter more than eight weeks ago advising Anderson to take precisely this course
he has done, fully aware that the result would be the loss of the fortress.
His justification of the act would be that a bloody conflict would therefore
be avoided and civil war averted. This pretext has served him for all his traitorous
and imbecile acts, and if can be made to do duty once more to cover up the disgrace
consequent upon the fall of Sumter. |